It's all gone pear-shaped for Avispa Fukuoka. Relegated from J1 at the end of 2006, the Kyushu side were expected to make a swift return to the top flight under the auspices of former Sydney FC coach Pierre Littbarski. The German World Cup winner knows the J. League well - he was a star at JEF United in the early nineties, before going on to coach the inaugural Yokohama FC in the lower reaches of the Japanese game.

Things have gone horribly wrong since the appointment of Littbarski, however. Fukuoka only went down after losing the promotion/relegation playoff on away goals to Vissel Kobe at the end of 2006, but despite signing experienced Australian international Alvin Ceccoli, the southern side could only finish seventh in their thirteen team league last season.

This season the J. League welcomed two new additions to J2 in the form of FC Gifu and Roasso Kumamoto - making a tough league even tougher to get out of. The result is that after fifteen rounds of action, Avispa Fukuoka are currently struggling in twelfth place in the fifteen team league.

Ever the innovator, at the start of the season Littbarski decided to do away with Fukuoka's Brazilian gaijin and replace them with players that he became acquainted with during his time as a coach in the fledgling A-League. It has been a "verkorksten" strategy. After scoring 26 goals in 45 games from midfield last season, Alex has gone on to become a key player at J1 side Kashiwa Reysol. Lincoln scored sixteen goals in 39 games for Fukuoka last season before he was shipped out to Shonan Bellmare, who are very much in the race for promotion to the top flight next season. That's a position that Avispa Fukuoka can only dream of.

In their places came Sydney FC duo Mark Rudan and Ufuk Talay to line up in defence and midfield respectively. Following the departure of Alvin Ceccoli, Australian international striker Joel Griffiths was signed on loan. Fukuoka also brought in the likes of Mike Havenaar from Yokohama F. Marinos and veteran Teruaki Kurobe from JEF United. They have all failed to impress.

Only former Kashiwa Reysol man Tetsuya Okubo has shown any kind of form, and he is the club's current top scorer with five goals in fifteen games. The rest of Fukuoka's high-profile signings have struggled. After spending most of Sydney FC's championship-winning season on the bench, Mark Rudan looks set to do the same at Fukuoka. He has struggled with knee injuries for most of the season, but his 92-kilogram frame has also made him an easy target for some of J2's more nimble-footed attackers.

Ufuk Talay's expansive passing game has been stifled by the quicker pace of Japanese football and his explosive temperament has at times riled some of J2's nit-picking referees - who must rank as some of the most pedantic in world football. Only Joel Griffiths has shown glimpses of his best form, but injuries, suspensions and international call-ups have limited his productivity to just three goals in nine games. 

After a succession of embarrassing defeats - including a humiliating derby day home defeat to J2 newcomers Roasso Kumamoto, Littbarski was given three matches to turn things around. He failed to do so. Yet the German has been spared the axe by an admission from club officials that they cannot afford to sack him! Indeed, so dire are Fukuoka's financial straits that J2 officials are nervously hoping that Fukuoka don't go under.

It's a world away from the top flight, and Fukuoka will need a miracle to get back there any time soon, given that they are already a massive twenty points behind league leaders Sanfrecce Hiroshima. Their struggles will also vindicate those who claimed that the tried-and-tested method of signing Brazilians to fill the three foreign squad places available was the only way to guarantee success. In a traditionally conservative country like Japan, the fortunes of Fukuoka's three Australians - not to mention Eddy Bosnar's JEF United, who are struggling in last place in J1, means that J. League teams are likely to think twice when it comes to signing Australians in the future.

That's the least of Avispa Fukuoka's current concerns. Unless they can generate some cash flow... let alone start to win some games, they could become the next Japanese team to crumble under the weight of financial strain. Far from walking in a Litti wonderland, Avispa Fukuoka seem to have found themselves in a nightmare of their own making.

Twelve years after Arsene Wenger left Nagoya Grampus bound for Arsenal, and seven years after the French tactician convinced Junichi "T-Shirt" Inamoto to swap the J. League for life at Highbury, the question arises... could Arsenal be about to raid the J. League once more? The answer, according to my sources, is no.

In slightly unrelated Arsenal news, the fourth matchday of Japan's League Cup group stage takes place on May 25, and the afternoon kicks off with a mouth-watering clash between bitter local rivals Shimizu S-Pulse and Jubilo Iwata.

These two sides met in the league back on May 3, with Jubilo outplaying their hosts in a 1-1 draw at Nihondaira Stadium. The stakes are different when they meet again at the hill-top venue, with Shimizu currently leading their League Cup group on seven points, while Jubilo trail three points further back. With only the group winners guaranteed progression to the final eight, there's bound to be plenty of passion on show at Nihondaira, with matches between these two rarely dull affairs.

The return fixture is set down for the final matchday on June 8 at Yamaha Stadium, by which time Shimizu S-Pulse will hope to have sealed their place in the knock-out stage. With the two best-placed runner's up also joining AFC Champions League participants Kashima Antlers and defending League Cup champions Gamba Osaka in the last eight, there's still a chance for Jubilo to progress even if they fail to win tomorrow - although things are looking bleak with their goal difference currently standing at 0.

Both Shimizu and Jubilo have been hindered by international call-ups, while Shimizu's current injury woes are well documented over on the S-Pulse UK Ultras site - with Arata Kodama and Fernandinho looking set to join the similarly injured Daisuke Ichikawa and Teruyoshi Ito on the sidelines. There'll nevertheless be a cracking atmosphere inside Nihondaira as two of Japan's most bitter rivals slug it out in the quest to progress to the quarter-finals of the 2008 League Cup.

57,050 fans turned out at Saitama Stadium on May 17 to watch the high-profile J. League clash between Urawa Reds and Gamba Osaka. Not all of them liked what they saw.

Played in a tinderbox atmosphere, the match exploded into life - and controversy, a minute before half-time. Under pressure from Urawa defender Yuki Abe, Gamba's Brazilian striker Bare seemingly played the ball into touch adjacent to the corner flag. Ever the quick-thinker, Bare simply picked the ball up and threw it to the feet of Takahiro Futagawa. While Abe and his fellow Urawa defenders protested to referee Masayoshi Okada, Futagawa fed Masato Yamazaki to nonchalantly sweep the ball home in front of the Urawa home end. That handed Gamba a 2-0 half-time lead.

The record books will show that Gamba eventually went on to win 3-2, thanks in no small part to a majestic third from Yasuhito Endo that helped the Osakans to break their Saitama hoodoo. Yet few were talking about the result come the end of the match.

That's because in a fit of childish petulance the Urawa players demanded that Gamba halt their post-match celebrations, which consisted of nothing more than jumping around inside the centre circle. Gamba's decision to celebrate in front of the away end at the behest of the enraged Reds did little to reduce the tension. Indeed, it seemed to fuel it.

It's difficult to single out individual Urawa players when the entire squad seemed take part in the scuffle that ensued, yet two players should come under particular scrutiny. They are Urawa goalkeeper Ryota Tsuzuki and defensive midfielder Marcos Tulio Tanaka. Above all else, the actions of these two players endangered the lives of fans packed into the goal at the away end.

Tsuzuki is an ex-Gamba player, yet he was infuriated by the loss, and was repeatedly restrained by his team-mates from seemingly trying to attack his former colleagues. Marcos Tulio Tanaka is renowned as one of the most passionate players in Japanese football, yet he too overstepped the mark, although in Gamba's Bare he for once found an adversary who was not afraid to back down from a fight.

By now the action on the pitch was a mere sideshow to the chaos taking place on the terraces. The boorish behaviour of Urawa's spoilt fans has long been a bone of contention for fans of rival J. League clubs. However the Reds fans went well beyond their usual jeering, as several of them attempted to tear down the fence that separated the two sets of supporters. Some Gamba fans responded by raining projectiles down on their counterparts - not the smartest of moves, as the police watched on helplessly.

In the mayhem that followed one Gamba fan was reportedly injured attempting to scale the fence, while the Reds fans themselves managed to tear down a section of the partition and were only held back by a desperate line of police. One Reds fan lobbed what appeared to be a steel flagpole into the Gamba section. The footage was eagerly seized upon and broadcast all over the nightly news.

It's not a good look for the J. League, which is precisely why in their English-language round-up there is not a single mention of the fan violence. Any hopes that the J. League had of keeping the crowd disturbances quiet are dashed by the fact that an army of savvy fans filmed it from a variety of angles and duly uploaded it to YouTube.

The irony is that when quizzed on the topic of hooliganism, most Japanese football fans will quickly link it to English football. Yet hooliganism was all but stamped out of English football twenty years ago. While clashes between rivals fans still occur, they are generally staged events that take place away from football stadia. They are not the kind of incidents that endanger the general public in front of a police force that has little experience in crowd control.

While Gamba fans are not blameless in this incident, the J. League should throw the book at Urawa for the actions of their fans. Even after the incident had died down, some 5,000 Urawa fans waited outside the ground for up to three hours for the beleaguered Gamba supporters to emerge, before police finally convinced the Reds fans to disperse.

Having offered Urawa favourable treatment for so long, the J. League must now reckon with the monster that they have created. The Reds players and a large section of their support consider themselves above the J. League. A home defeat is now cause for a mini-riot. Opposition celebrations are tantamount to a declaration of war. How did this happen?

Urawa Reds may be lauded for the size of their crowds or their sizeable profits, but unless the J. League treads very, very carefully, then the Saitama club could soon become the straw that breaks the camel's back. No one can say that the J. League hasn't been warned.

JEF United have hired former Rangers star and Liverpool first team coach Alex Miller to take over as coach of the J. League's bottom club.

Presumably United have kept Miller more up-to-date than they did the departed Josip Kuze, who claimed that he was unaware United had sold their five best players before he took over as coach in January.

The Chiba side are already ten points adrift of safety even at this early stage of the season, and they need a drastic change of fortunes if they are to climb out of the J. League basement.

While the question remains as to just how much Miller knows about Japanese football - and why he would even give up a comfortable job with Liverpool to take over an outfit that look destined for the drop, a more pertinent question has been raised over at the always amusing Soilent Green. Just how responsible is the JEF United front office for the Chiba club's current plight? The answer appears to be 'very.'

Verdy fans more than most might question JEF United's hiring policy. Yet more than poor player recruitment, it has been some baffling off-field decisions that have seemingly crippled the 2005 and 2006 League Cup champions.

Tadashi Karai's reward for dragging the once-mightiest club in Japanese football into the depths of J2 in his role as General Manager, was to seal a move from Tokyo Verdy to a JEF United side that was once touted as genuine title challenger.

Yet United's most damaging move was surely installing the inexperienced Amar Osim as coach, following his father Ivica Osim's decision to take over as coach of Japan after the World Cup in 2006. When Osim Jr took United to within an inch of relegation last season, he was stoutly defended by the United back room staff - to the point that defender Ilian Stoyanov was sacked for speaking out against the hapless Bosnian. But after defending Osim Jr for months - and even seeing him keep the Chiba Dogs in the top flight by the skin of their teeth, United then chose to sack Osim Jr after the final game of the season... just two weeks after his father had suffered a life-threatening stroke.

Then came the bizarre post-match interviews after United's most recent 3-0 loss to Urawa Reds, with new coach Josip Kuze insisting that JEF United had pledged their full support to him. Kuze, at least according to his version of events, had even been lining up reinforcements for his struggling side. Yet less than 24 hours later the Croatian was shown the door.

It's a sorry state of affairs for a club that enjoys some of the more passionate support in the league. Unless Alex Miller can pull the proverbial rabbit out of his hat, he could be the next high-profile foreign coach to take the fall for the Chiba Dogs' bumbling bureaucrats behind the scenes.

Tokyo Verdy. Kawasaki Frontale. Gamba Osaka. Not the biggest names in Japanese football, but they've all beaten Nagoya Grampus in the past fortnight.

Dragan Stojkovic's unbeaten run was always bound to come to an end, but few would have expected it to end against Tokyo Verdy. The promoted side were awful over the opening rounds of the season, but their first victory coincided with Nagoya's first defeat, and it catapulted the Toyota-backed club to a run of three straight losses - including a narrow 2-1 defeat at home to Gamba Osaka in a marquee fixture watched by 34,436 fans at Toyota Stadium.

Nagoya bounced back with a1-0 win away at Ajinomoto Stadium in front of 30,825 fans on May 6, although they were fortunate to do so. FC Tokyo substitute Yusuke Kondo had the chance to open his account for the season from the penalty spot in the 81st minute. Going with the tried-and-tested method of closing his eyes and simply blasting his penalty into orbit, Kondo watched in horror as it smashed on to the top of the crossbar and presumably deflected into the streets of Chofu. It's like that for some players.

Nagoya's defender Milos Bajalica is another for whom absolutely nothing has gone right. He was signed by Stojkovic himself from Red Star Belgrade, to fill the decidedly large boots of departed Slovakian defender Marek Spilar. Current PSV Eindhoven coach Sef Vergoossen once labelled Spilar "the best defender in Japan." It's not a label that will be applied to Bajalica any time soon.

Bajalica's J. League career got off to a less than auspicious start when he gave away a converted penalty on the opening day against Kyoto Sanga. Things have gotten progressively worse. His personal nightmare reached a new peak when the shaky Serb encountered Gamba Osaka's monstrous striker Bare. The lumbering front man looked like Baryshnikov against a defender who seemed to be treading on quicksand, with Bare scoring twice - both goals coming because he'd managed to shake off the bewildered Bajalica.

Nagoya will be spared Bajalica's so-called defending for their upcoming fixture at home to Vissel Kobe - the Serb is suspended, but the temperament of the volatile Stojkovic could be tested to the limit by the antics of the forever niggling Kobe. It may have been legendary Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger that introduced the pitch side tirade to Japanese football, but the combustible Stojkovic is yet to lose his rag on the sidelines. He has, however, reputedly come toe-to-toe with Nagoya's high profile off-season signing Magnum, who was stunned by his 63rd minute substitution in the loss to Gamba Osaka. Watch this space.

Things could be worse. Nagoya could be JEF United, and Stojkovic could be packing his bags just like Josip Kuze is currently doing. He was handed his walking papers today, following an abysmal start to the season that has seen the Chiba Dogs pick up just two points from their opening eleven league fixtures! The writing was on the wall for the 2005 and 2006 League Cup champions when five of their best players left during the off-season, and while there's still a long way to go, it looks like it will take a miracle for JEF United to stay up. Still, stranger things could happen. Milos Bajalica could become a competent J. League defender. It's that's kind of league.

I read an interesting piece from that redoubtable authority on South American football Tim Vickery the other day, suggesting that derbies are an over-rated aspect of the modern game. While it's difficult to disagree with his assessment that derbies are all blood-and-guts football with very little culture in between, there's no doubt that local rivalries continue to stir the passion of football fans the world over.

That's something that the J. League understands, and in what must rank as part of a policy of instituting just the one good idea per season, the league schedules a number of crackerjack local derbies during 'Golden Week' - when a string of public holidays gives the average worker a much-needed few days off.

Football fans use the opportunity to pack J. League grounds across the country and so, exactly a year to the day since they last met at the picturesque Nihondaira Stadium, the next installment of the fabled Shizuoka derby gets set to rock the port city of Shimizu on May 3.

Last season Jubilo midfielder Fabricio's badge-kissing antics in front of the S-Pulse fans produced a positively nuclear atmosphere, and while Fabricio is long gone, so too is Cho Jae-Jin; Shimizu's hero from their two derbies last season, with the Korean wracking up all three of his side's goals against their bitter prefectural rivals.

In his classic book on Japanese football "Ultra Nippon: How Japan Reinvented Football" (which somewhat bizarrely depicts a Jubilo fan on the cover, despite the fact that it's an account of S-Pulse's 1999 season), Johnathon Birchall paints a vivid account of Shimizu's excruciating loss to Jubilo in the 1999 championship playoff.

Having won the first stage of the 1999 season, Jubilo saw their Shizuoka rivals storm back to be crowned second stage champions. A two-legged playoff ensued, and after both teams played out 2-1 draws away from home, the 1999 J. League title came down to a penalty shoot-out. Jubilo won the shoot-out at Nihondaira, and that's something that the Shimizu faithful have never forgotten, adding extra spice to an already heated affair.

These days the J. League has reverted to a single stage season, and after several years of playing the derby exclusively at Ecopa Stadium - a 2002 FIFA World Cup venue, Shimizu now schedule their home leg for Nihondaira Stadium. That makes perfect sense to S-Pulse fans, since the town of Aino lies some seventy kilometres down the Tokaido line from Shimizu. Rather conveniently for Jubilo fans it's just a short hop from Iwata, and while Jubilo still play their home fixture at Ecopa, gone are the days when they can command fifty percent of the support in both derbies.

As such Jubilo will be up against it when they travel to a seething Nihondaira Stadium, and to complicate matters these two teams have also been drawn together in this season's League Cup group stage. They'll meet again in the Nihondaira foothills on May 25, and both teams will be looking to get the upper hand this weekend, as Shimizu braces itself for another edition of the Shizuoka Clásico.